Pre-LeBron Era Starting 5 vs LeBron Era Starting 5

[giordunk]

Create two lineups with the best players and best fit possible and put them against each other. Which team do you think is better?

The rules are the Pre-LeBron team can only use player season up to and including the 2003 season.

The LeBron team can use any players from the 03-04 season onwards.

For players that spanned both eras, for example Kobe, it comes down to the individual season. So in theory, you can have 03 Kobe on one team, and 06 Kobe on the other.

I'll put my lineups in later.

[Colbinii]

Which era are we playing in? 1970? 2000? 2010? 2024?

[Kingdibs19]

Magic
Jordan
Bird
Duncan
Kareem

Lebron
Steph
Durant
Duncan
Shaq

2nd team wins.

[Tomtolbert]

Assuming they'll be playing in the current era, my LeBron era team would be:

Curry
Leonard
Durant
LeBron
Garnett (barely makes the season cut-off)

That team is obviously made for the current era, so it's difficult to beat by a team of players from previous eras for which we'd have to hypothesize how they'd translate today. That said, my pre LeBron team would be something like:

West
Jordan
Magic
Bird
Olajuwon

[TheGOATRises007]

Magic
Jordan
Bird
Duncan
Kareem

Lebron
Steph
Durant
Duncan
Shaq

2nd team wins.

Shaq and Duncan aren't really in LeBron's era.

[Cavsfansince84]

Magic
Jordan
Bird
Duncan
Kareem

Lebron
Steph
Durant
Duncan
Shaq

2nd team wins.

Shaq and Duncan aren't really in LeBron's era.

I think it just needs to be a version of them from 04 forwards. Using the same player on both teams seems sort of strange though.

[Colbinii]

Magic
Jordan
Bird
Duncan
Kareem

Lebron
Steph
Durant
Duncan
Shaq

2nd team wins.

Shaq and Duncan aren't really in LeBron's era.

Duncan is. They played 3x in the Finals.

[ardee]

1990 Magic
1990 Jordan
1995 Pippen
2003 KG
1993 Hakeem

vs

2021 Curry
2017 Kawhi
2014 Durant
2013 LeBron
2007 Duncan

Obviously prioritizing fit over raw talent here. It's hard to pick against the LeBron-era team considering the shooting imo.

[wafflzgod]

Pre-Lebron era: Magic / Jordan / Bird / Duncan ('02) / Shaq ('00)
Lebron era: Steph / Kawhi / Lebron / Garnett ('04) / Jokic

While player-for-player in an era-relative evaluation, the pre-Lebron team might look better, I think the Lebron era team fits better and more importantly has much better spacing/shooting meant for today's game. So, I would take the Lebron era team in a matchup in the modern league.

[Colbinii]

1964 Oscar Robertson
1991 Michael Jordan
2003 Tracy McGrady
1986 Larry Bird
2003 Tim Duncan

I'm trying to get as much skill on the perimeter as possible to match the Post-2003 team which has an abundance of shot creation, spacing and on-ball skill comparatively.

2017 Steph Curry
2017 Kawhi Leonard
2013 LeBron James
2004 Kevin Garnett
2023 Nikola Jokic

This rendition is leaning into size for an era chalked full of shooting, on-ball skill and intangibles. Maximize spacing around Jokic/LeBron with the most versatile defender who willingly takes a back seat in KG.

[Throwawaytheone]

.

[DraymondGold]

1964 Oscar Robertson
1991 Michael Jordan
2003 Tracy McGrady
1986 Larry Bird
2003 Tim Duncan

I'm trying to get as much skill on the perimeter as possible to match the Post-2003 team which has an abundance of shot creation, spacing and on-ball skill comparatively.

2017 Steph Curry
2017 Kawhi Leonard
2013 LeBron James
2004 Kevin Garnett
2023 Nikola Jokic

This rendition is leaning into size for an era chalked full of shooting, on-ball skill and intangibles. Maximize spacing around Jokic/LeBron with the most versatile defender who willingly takes a back seat in KG.

Why not use someone like West instead of Oscar? Seems like he'd have more of a multiplicative effect on the team on both ends.

Cool teams Colbinii! The thought of West also occurred to me. Presumably if they chose Oscar over West, they felt like they needed a little more on-ball decision making and passing. Jordan's obviously a strong passer and has had stints where he's more of a point guard, and Larry Bird's obviously one of the best passers ever, but both are at their best when they're in a little more of a hybrid on/off-ball role. And it's not like McGrady or Duncan are going to pick up the on-ball decision making.

If you're going with West instead of Oscar (I'm definitely higher on West for peak, and I like his scalability too), what do people think of either (a) Pippen instead of McGrady or (b) Wilt / Walton instead of Duncan?

West gives better defense, better shooting/floor spacing, and some nice combo guard on/off ball play, obviously at the cost of Oscar's on-ball passing/playmaking (although West is no slouch as a passer/playmaker).

(a) With Pippen, you get someone who can play more of a point-forward style than McGrady, the defense makes a clear jump, and you get a guy with some nice chemistry with Jordan. The loss of shooting in particular from McGrady would definitely sting against the more modern team, although West helps make up for it a bit.

(b) With Wilt/Walton, you don't lose much (if any) on defense (although the defensive style does shift from being a little more mobile to a bit more of a rim protector... so perhaps that's a slight drop vs modern teams), and you still get someone with complementary scoring (compared to if you went all-in on defense with Russell). But you also get someone with more passing, which might fit well with the off-ball abilities of West (over Oscar), Jordan, Bird.

I'm not dead set on any of these! You could also just swap West for Oscar, and have the on-ball playmaking role be split more evenly among West/Jordan/Bird compared to more centralized in Oscar. But if you're worried about missing what Oscar brings but feel West is the better peak to Oscar, choices a/b above might help address the issue!

Thinking tangentially, I would also be interested in why you went for Oscar over Magic. Both have a similar style of on-ball playmaking (with Magic being better). Magic would also bring slightly more floor spacing / shooting. Presumably you thought Oscar's all-around play and potentially his defense would work better than Magic?

...

As for the modern team, I like how you manage to complement Jokic's defensive concerns with Garnett, LeBron, and Kawhi.
Me personally, if you already have Curry/LeBron/Jokic on a team, I might prefer to have 2016 Kawhi at shooting guard over 2017 Kawhi. Don't get me wrong, I have 2017 Kawhi as the better overall player on most teams, but he improves as an on-ball scorer, while losing a bit as an off-ball shooter (2016 was his best shooting year) and taking a clear step back as a defender. For this team, 2016 Kawhi's extra off-ball play and shooting seems to pair better with Jokic/LeBron, and getting more defense seems like it would help (who needs 2017 Kawhi on offense when you have 2013 LeBron?).

The other option for the modern team is to commit more to a small-ball Warriors style of team building, and switch Jokic for Durant (moving Garnett up to center and LeBron up to power forward). In this metaphor, Curry = Curry, Kawhi = Rich Man's Klay, Durant = Durant, Garnett = rich Man's Draymond, and if I'm forcing the metaphor, that leaves LeBron as a billionaire version of Andre Iguodala (presumably taking on more of Draymond's on-ball offensive duties than Iguodala with Garnett shifting to be a better defensive anchor than Dray and more of a finisher/scorer).
I have peak Jokic over peak Durant, but it's not too massive of a gap. And the small ball lineup would give you an interesting change in playstyle compared to the Jokic version. You probably get a LeBron that's a bit more on-ball maximized on offense (although it's up to you whether that improvement's enough to make up for the offensive gap between Jokic and Durant). On defense, you lose some defensive rebounding and communication, but gain some versatility and become less vulnerable to perimeter matchup hunting. Perhaps the defensive rebounding is a bit more important and versatility a bit less important against an older-style team compared to a more modern one. But both versions of the modern team would be interesting. There's clear perks to both versions, and I'm not sure which I prefer.

[Iwasawitness]

Magic
Jordan
Bird
Duncan
Kareem

Lebron
Steph
Durant
Duncan
Shaq

2nd team wins.

Shaq and Duncan aren't really in LeBron's era.

How do you figure? LeBron faced Duncan in the Finals three times, and won four of his five championships while LeBron was in the league.

[Throwawaytheone]

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